Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back. This episode I call the Back to the Basics episode. In this entire podcast series, if you go back and listen to the almost a hundred episodes now, every episode is all about a deep dive into some part of the content in the book Shine, either the three discoveries or the 10 Disciplines. What we're going to do today is get you all the way back to the basics in terms of the purity of the content. And I feel like today is the day.
(00:34):
What's interesting about this, and what I mean by the timing is, I am coming off of the craziest three weeks I can remember in a long time. And when I went to bed last night, I cannot remember being more exhausted, just the craziest thing. So it's been this crazy three weeks of being in five different cities, and eight flights, and not getting a lot of sleep, no buffer time, no clarity breaks, and very little stillness.
(01:08):
And so again, I'm just sharing all of this to let you know I'm human like you, because I know a lot of you are relating to this right now. This is life, and what a great opportunity, when things are this crazy, to do a checkup on myself to make sure I'm doing the basics. We have to be so careful when life carries us away. And so we're going to get back to the basics today.
(01:30):
And so all that said, here we go. I'm going to start with the three discoveries to free your True Self. And so what I'll do is share the pure content, if you will, and then just do a little bit of riff after that. And so the three discoveries for freeing your True Self, discovery number one is I am driven.
(01:55):
And so just a couple questions for you, thoughts for you. So in this discovery, this is all about you discovering that you are a driven person. Me discovering and realizing that I am a driven person, and then just doing a checkup, as a driven person who just wants to go, go, go, go, go, all day every day, am I running hot? Are you running hot? When you're with family, friends, coworkers, are you running hot? So just an awareness to tone it down a little bit. Tone that intensity down. Be aware.
(02:27):
Also, are you celebrating your gifts? So you have a lot of gifts as a driven person. Are you celebrating those gifts? And at the same time, are you being gentle with yourself about your weaknesses, about your challenges, about the downside of being driven? So are you being gentle with yourself, but also being aware when it's showing up with other people, so that you're not leaving a black trail behind you?
(02:52):
And then the last thought that came to mind on the whole I am driven is this thing that's coming up for me, and it's do you love yourself? Do you love your driven self? Because you're supposed to, because you should, because it's important. And I'm learning and realizing I'm loving myself more and more every day, and just, again, embracing and celebrating my gifts, and not beating myself too much up about my weaknesses. And so do you love yourself? Are you loving yourself? Are you loving your driven nature? Because you are driven, with all its blessings and all of its curses.
(03:32):
Discovery number two, decisions are made out of love or fear. And so this one, I really do hope I say a few things different, because it's incredible how this discovery just keeps evolving and getting clearer. And I hear it a hundred different ways. And as you may recall, we've revised Shine, it comes out as a revised edition in February. And in those revisions, there's updates, and new knowledge, and new understanding around this discovery. But I want to take it back to its purest form first. And that is simply that, when you are making a decision from fear, it's coming from your ego. And when you're making a decision from love, it's coming from your True Self. It's that simple.
(04:22):
And here we go again, awareness. And so just be aware. If you just pay attention, that decision I just made, that reaction I just had, the whatever just happened, was it fear-based or was it love-based? And if you realize it was fear-based, it's your ego, and it's an opportunity to just do a little checkup, pull that thread. Why did my ego kick in? Why is my ego trying to protect me?
(04:51):
Your True Self, when it comes from love, there's no desire or need to protect yourself. You're just fully, authentically being you. And so just to pull the thread and dig a little bit into this one, again, this discovery is all about the cocoon, as I like to describe it. Again, pictures yourself as that beautiful bright light, your True Self, your spirit, your soul, whatever word you want to choose, you are this beautiful ball of light. But for most of us, it's trapped in this cocoon, this dark cocoon that is our ego. Now, the ego's intentions are good. The ego is trying to protect us from ever feeling the pain that we felt that caused us to create the cocoon, the protective layer, the suit of armor, whatever you want to call it. And the idea is to shed that cocoon. Figure out what it is your ego is trying to protect yourself from. Go back to the pain, go back to when those walls were built and shed them all. You don't need them anymore. It's time to free your True Self.
(05:59):
Now, all that said, we're into discovery number two, decisions are made from love or fear. And if you remember, there are four levels. And so in those levels, not going to go through them specifically, I trust you know them. If not, please reread this chapter. But everything I just described is energy. And I know that's so hard to comprehend. It took me decades to comprehend it. I feel like I've written it a bit better in this revision of Shine. But the block has to come up. If you want to be free, the block has to come up, and you need to release it. And as Michael Singer says, it comes up with just as much pain as it went down.
(06:46):
And so that painful thing that happened, be it six years old, eight years old, 12 years old, 20 years old, 45 years old, it's going to come up just as painful as it went down. And your body's going to feel that. And that's why we shut it down when it starts to happen. Let it come up. Let the blocked energy come up, because once you do, you feel this incredible sense of peace. You feel this incredible release, and you're that much closer to bringing down the cocoon and freeing yourself.
(07:19):
Onto discovery number three. It is possible to be driven and have peace. This is the point of all of it, that we can be our driven selves, make an incredible impact on the world while experiencing peace. And so I ask you, what's going on under the surface? Because the ultimate destination we're working toward here is that we can be our driven selves, make that impact on the world, work this hard, while feeling a foundation of peace.
(07:54):
The tectonic plates aren't shifting below the surface. Our nervous system is not amped up, it's peaceful and it's calm. So in everything I described about my last three weeks, in this fucking crazy three weeks, that is literally, I was like, on a scale of one to 10, I was at a less than a one last night when my head hit that pillow. And I can't remember being that exhausted. But almost every minute of that last three weeks, the peace that I felt, the foundation was incredible. And so what's going on under the surface for you? Are you operating right now on a foundation of angst, or are you operating on a foundation of peace? Are you living your life from the outside-in, or from the inside-out? So there is our back to the basics on the three discoveries to free your True Self, onto the back to the basics on the 10 Disciplines to maximize your energy, impact, and inner peace.
(09:00):
And so here we go. Discipline number one, 10-year thinking. The bold statement is always shift your mind from short-term thinking to thinking in 10-year timeframes. And when you do, time slows down, a peace comes over you, you make better decisions, you will get there faster. You have clarity, alignment, you must go slow to go fast.
(09:24):
And so just a quick prompt here. So something hit me. I was in Arizona doing a talk yesterday, and I was teaching 10-year target to an audience. And I was reminded of when I set my goal to have 10,000 companies running on EOS. And I set that goal in 2003, and the goal was to achieve that by 2020. So it was a 17-year goal. And I was just in awe when I thought about 17 years. You look back and you think, "17 years, that's a lot of time to focus on one thing."
(10:02):
And then you think about the future. "Wow, 17 years of focusing on something, that seems like a long time." But when you look at it in perspective, it's incredible, because I had no idea how I was going to accomplish it. But my God, the energy, the fun we had, it was such a ride. And now I have other certainly long-range goals and visions, but the power, it's just crazy to think about. And so I hope there's something that you're seeing, wanting on the long-term horizon, and focusing on that, because you will achieve it.
(10:36):
Discipline number two is take time off. I hope you're taking time off. The bold statement, take 130 days off per year and don't think about work the entire day. And so hopefully you've got lots of time off scheduled for yourself. You've got to create space to recharge your batteries. I'll leave it at that.
(10:56):
Discipline number three, know thyself. Bold statement. Be your True Self a hundred percent of the time, 24/7, 365. If you will do that, you will burn less energy. You'll stop being a chameleon. You'll be more authentic, you'll be freer, you'll have more fun and you'll let your freak flag fly. So on this one, what comes to mind is shed your shit. It's like, I came at this a different way when I thought about this today, and that is we're working to learn who we are, know ourselves, be ourselves. But let's look at it the opposite way. How about you just shed all your shit that isn't you, and what's going to happen is the you, the real you is going to naturally appear. So err on the side of shedding your shit. Maybe this is the time to give some thought to that.
(11:45):
And the other thought that comes to mind is, I shared this a few minutes ago, and that is I'm loving myself more than ever. I realized I didn't love myself in my twenties, thirties and forties. That is not a good way to live. We're here to love ourselves. That's the starting point. And so I'm also starting to love some of the not so desirable traits. The idea is not to beat the shit out of ourselves over them. It's to accept them, understand them, tone them down as much as we can. And so again, my intensity is one of my big traits. And I love my intensity, it's just most people around me don't. But I used to beat myself up about it, and people would be critical of it. So I do tone it down, but I still love my intensity. I just am able to control it a little more, understand it a little bit more, and not beat myself up about it. And so think of some of your not so desirable traits, embrace them, and think about some of the shit you need to shed, shed the cocoon, and the True Self, your True Self, knowing yourself, being yourself will come right to the surface.
(12:53):
Discipline number four is be still. Bold statement here. Sit in silence for 30 minutes every day. And so this one, an aha for me in the last 30 days, it was one of our mastermind members that said it, and it's something I've always practiced, but I don't share it very often. And his aha was that he realized that he can mix his stillness practice up. He can do it different ways. It doesn't have to be this rigid rote routine every single day, although it is for many. So this is for you to customize for you. But I absolutely mix up my stillness routine, and I want to make sure you're hearing that have some variety in your stillness routine. And so when you look at journaling, and meditation, and prayer, and contemplation, and all the different forms of meditation, mix it up, play around with it, interchange them. So do what works best for you, but certainly practice stillness, ideally 30 minutes a day.
(13:58):
Discipline number five, know your 100%. Bold statement. Decide on and commit to the perfect number of hours per week and weeks per year that you will deliver your craft to the world. And so this is a perfect time for this one to come up for me, because this last three weeks I have been at 140%, and if I keep this up, I will keel over and die. So me knowing my hundred percent and hopefully you knowing your hundred percent, the idea is to work within that hundred percent.
(14:32):
That's your work container. And just understand, every once in a while you're going to overdo it. Just be aware when you do, know that there's hope, there's salvation around the corner, as there is for me tomorrow, and get back to your hundred percent. The old saying, you can live out of balance in life as long as you know for how long and why. I knew this was coming. I knew this in August. I knew this in September. I saw it on my calendar. I knew exactly how I'd feel. I didn't know I'd feel this exhausted.
(15:05):
Discipline number six, say no often. Bold statement, say no to everything that doesn't fit into the first five Disciplines. I'm a little surprised. It's like if I were to look at all 10 Disciplines and think about the one I hear about the most and the one that people struggle with the most, and what I learned I struggle with in my personal life the most is this one. And it's pretty fascinating.
(15:31):
But what I now realize and I see so clearly is I just have less guilt, and I'm applying it to my personal life more than ever. And I just see it so clearly now. But think about, see everything, and understand how important it is for you to say no. There's something you're about to say yes to today that you need to say no to, or there's something you said yes to yesterday that you should have said no to. Go fix it.
(15:57):
Discipline number seven, don't do $25 an hour work, aka, don't do low energy work. Never do anything that you could pay someone $25 an hour to do. So I'm going to share a decision I made with this Discipline in the last two months that has been profound. And there's two parts to it. First is I realize I am no longer going to get involved in the day-to-day of any of my companies ever again. Okay, bold statement. Who knows? I might slip in, but I realize I'm still spending too much time, more than I anticipated or have interest in.
(16:39):
And so the second part of this is what I'm calling plug and play. So I have this visual, this set of words I'm calling plug and play. And I realize at this point in my life, with what my gift is to the world, I just need to plug and play into opportunities where I can create content, teach content, or navigate leaders, just provide mentorship and guide leaders. And the leaders are the visionaries in my life that are either my clients or run companies that I'm involved in.
(17:08):
And so I call it plug and play, and that's plugging into a podcast that makes sense, plugging into a talk, plugging into one of those situations. It's just plug and play. And anything else I'm just not doing anymore. Now, I don't know if that makes sense to you. Hopefully that prompts something for you, gives you a thought, but it's just the next level of getting myself out of low energy work and going to another level of energy around that. So I'll leave you with that thought.
(17:36):
Onto Discipline number eight, prepare every night. Bold statement, before your head hits the pillow every night, document the next day's plan. And so what was prompted is just this simple thought, and that is to see your number one goal realized every night that your head hits the pillow. I'm going to assume you're preparing every night. I don't need to reteach you how to prepare every night. So to add this powerful Discipline to your routine, where now that you're prepared for the next day when your head hits the pillow, just see your most important long-range goal realized. Something I did for 17 years, and it became a reality.
(18:22):
Discipline number nine, put everything in one place. Bold statement, pick the one place where you will capture every idea, commitment, thought, action, item and promise. My one place is my legal pad. I urge you to consider the legal pad. What I notice now more than ever is people writing either in a journal, a notebook, or a legal pad, but something paper. Consider, just consider your one place being something you write on. Very powerful.
(18:58):
And last but not least, Discipline number 10, be humble. Bold statement here, view yourself as an equal to every person on the planet. And this one's pretty short, sweet, and simple as well. I urge you to just say thank you throughout the day. There's just something that will happen to your energy. There's something that will happen to your humility. Just say thank you.
(19:26):
And so there you have it, back to the basics. I hope that helped. What I was hoping for is there was one thing that was going to hit you that you're like, "Wow, this is the thing I'm going to do this week, this month to make a huge impact." I don't expect you to do 20 things. One is enough. And I also urge you to consider coming back to this episode when you feel like you need to go back to the basics, especially when things get crazy like they are for me right now. For me, this was really helpful to get back to the basics. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
(19:58):
Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us, and please tune in for the next episode. Until then, we wish you all the best in freeing your True Self. Stay focused, and much love.
